Thursday, January 28, 2010

The best part about working a short day each Thursday is taking a jaunt on the way home just to shake off the work week dust from my mind.

I headed up to Neff's Canyon yesterday after work. It is a well known trail head at the top of Olympus Cove where we live.You might recall my autumn header with snow and fall leaves awhile back? That shot was taken there, and here is the same shot in the dead of winter.

Amazing how fast snow can melt up here. It had eight inches on Monday and now there are already bare spots on the south facing slopes.

Caps of snow still conceal the tops of large rocks.

A few tall grasses still lingering on in the snow.

White tree trunks stand nakedly before the well dressed firs.

The parking lot: My car is the white one with the ski racks, in comfortable commune with all the other Subarus.The Subaru All-Wheel drive feature makes it a popular automotive brand around these parts.

This bench and supplies had my curiosity up: B. thinks it may be supplies for stranded people. I think it is the fort of a homeless Joe. A house is just across from the parking lot...why would anyone need supplies when they could just head over to the house and ask for help?

The trail head that leads up the canyon...I've only hiked it twice. It isn't a particularly interesting trail so I haven't been drawn to taking the hike again, although I will explore it in springtime to check out the wildflowers.

Thoughtful hikers gather lost items along the way and then leave them at the trail head in plain sight.

Another rock/snow scape that caught my eye.

OK...now it is time for the funny parts that made me laugh.

Neff's Canyon is mostly used as a dog park. The Olympus Cove crowd take their dogs up to the meadow area and turn them loose for a good run every day.

It is a riot to watch the dogs having a blast chasing and playing in the snow.

These two are owned by the same person, but the dogs were playing like if they were newly made best friends.

Back to the parking lot: Subaru owners LOVE to put stickers on their cars. It is rare indeed to find one without some kind of reading material affixed to the back bumper.

(This sticker brought to mind dear old Otis...long gone but not forgotten.)

The licensed plate informs the reader that the driver went to the University of Utah, an important bit of information in this town. Wouldn't want to be confused with a BYU grad!

This Subaru was even more chatty.Barely visible in the upper left corner is same sticker that my Subaru bears: A white snowflake against a black background with red lettering that proclaims "ALTA", a popular local ski resort.

My car's sticker.

And the next Subaru's response to our Alta sticker.

(Notice the same little white snowflake with red letters and ALTA is on this bumper too?)Yeah...that car owner skiis Alta too.Just like everybody else around here.

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Pro-life/Anti-abortion news is on the rise, and I am glad to find that there is good news on the topic for a change. The two articles below are long, but oh so worth reading if it is an issue that is important to you as well.

Incidently, abortion numbers are increasing again in America after years of decline. I strongly suspect that has a lot to do with the tanking economy. Out of work families likely feel they dare not have an unplanned child.

Because of that situation, I am thrilled about the anti-abortion commercial that is scheduled to air during the Super Bowl. Curiously, it is a message about one particular woman, her choice, and her now adult child.

The National Organization of Women is protesting this ad. This group is always so vocal about "choice" yet apparently can not tolerate an ad about a woman who choses life instead of abortion. Something to think about!

For several years I've supported Focus on the Families program to buy ultra sound equipment for crisis pregnancy centers. The following story really made me glad for the way those dollars were spent.

Mugged by UltrasoundWhy so many abortion workers have turned pro-life.BY David Daleiden and Jon A. ShieldsJanuary 25, 2010, Vol. 15, No. 18Abortion rights activists have long preferred to hold themselves at some remove from the practice they promote; rather than naming it, they speak of “choice” and “reproductive freedom.” But those who perform abortions have no such luxury. Instead, advances in ultrasound imaging and abortion procedures have forced providers ever closer to the nub of their work. Especially in abortions performed far enough along in gestation that the fetus is recognizably a tiny baby, this intimacy exacts an emotional toll, stirring sentiments for which doctors, nurses, and aides are sometimes unprepared. Most apparently have managed to reconcile their belief in the right to abortion with their revulsion at dying and dead fetuses, but a noteworthy number have found the conflict unbearable and have defected to the pro-life cause.

In the aftermath of Roe v. Wade, second-trimester abortions were usually performed by saline injection. The doctor simply replaced the amniotic fluid in the patient’s uterus with a saline solution and induced labor, leaving it to nurses to dispose of the expelled fetus. That changed in the late 1970s, when “dilation and evacuation” (D&E) emerged as a safer method. Today D&E is the most common second-trimester procedure. It has been performed millions of times in the United States.

But although D&E is better for the patient, it brings emotional distress for the abortionist, who, after inserting laminaria that cause the cervix to dilate, must dismember and remove the fetus with forceps. One early study, by abortionists Warren Hern and Billie Corrigan, found that although all of their staff members “approved of second trimester abortion in principle,” there “were few positive comments about D&E itself.” Reactions included “shock, dismay, amazement, disgust, fear, and sadness.” A more ambitious study published the following year, in the September 1979 issue of the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, confirmed Hern and Corrigan’s findings. It found “strong emotional reactions during or following the procedures and occasional disquieting dreams.”

Another study, published in the October 1989 issue of Social Science and Medicine noted that abortion providers were pained by encounters with the fetus regardless of how committed they were to abortion rights. It seems that no amount of ideological conviction can inoculate providers against negative emotional reactions to abortion.

Such studies are few. In general, abortion providers have censored their own emotional trauma out of concern to protect abortion rights. In 2008, however, abortionist Lisa Harris endeavored to begin “breaking the silence” in the pages of the journal Reproductive Health Matters. When she herself was 18 weeks pregnant, Dr. Harris performed a D&E abortion on an 18-week-old fetus. Harris felt her own child kick precisely at the moment that she ripped a fetal leg off with her forceps:

Instantly, tears were streaming from my eyes—without me—meaning my conscious brain—even being aware of what was going on. I felt as if my response had come entirely from my body, bypassing my usual cognitive processing completely. A message seemed to travel from my hand and my uterus to my tear ducts. It was an overwhelming feeling—a brutally visceral response—heartfelt and unmediated by my training or my feminist pro-choice politics. It was one of the more raw moments in my life.

Harris concluded her piece by lamenting that the pro-choice movement has left providers to suffer in silence because it has “not owned up to the reality of the fetus, or the reality of fetal parts.” Indeed, it often insists that images used by the pro-life movement are faked.

(Pro-choice advocates also falsely insist that second-trimester abortions are confined almost exclusively to tragic “hard” cases such as fetal malformation. Yet a review of the literature in the April 2009 issue of the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology found that most abortions performed after the first trimester are sought for the same reasons as first-trimester abortions, they’re just delayed. This reality only intensifies the guilt pangs of abortion providers.)

Hern and Harris chose to stay in the abortion business; one of the first doctors to change his allegiance was Paul Jarrett, who quit after only 23 abortions. His turning point came in 1974, when he performed an abortion on a fetus at 14 weeks’ gestation: “As I brought out the rib cage, I looked and saw a tiny, beating heart,” he would recall. “And when I found the head of the baby, I looked squarely in the face of another human being—a human being that I just killed.”

In 1990 Judith Fetrow, an aide at a Planned Parenthood clinic, found that disposing of fetal bodies as medical waste was more than she could bear. Soon after she left her position, Fetrow described her experiences: “No one at Planned Parenthood wanted this job. . . . I had to look at the tiny hands and feet. There were times when I wanted to cry.” Finally persuaded to quit by a pro-life protester outside her clinic, Fetrow is now involved in the American Life League.

Kathy Sparks is another convert formerly responsible for disposing of fetal remains, this time at an Illinois abortion clinic. Her account of the experience that led her to exit the abortion industry (taken from the Pro-Life Action League website in 2004) reads in part:

The baby’s bones were far too developed to rip them up with [the doctor’s] curette, so he had to pull the baby out with forceps. He brought out three or four major pieces. I took the baby to the clean up room, I set him down and I began weeping uncontrollably. I cried and cried. This little face was perfectly formed.

A recovery nurse rebuked Sparks for her unprofessional behavior. She quit the next day. Sparks is now the director of a crisis pregnancy center with more than 20 pro-life volunteers.

Handling fetal remains can be especially difficult in late-term clinics. Until George Tiller was assassinated by a pro-life radical last summer, his clinic in Wichita specialized in third-trimester abortions. To handle the large volume of biological waste Tiller had a crematorium on the premises. One day when hauling a heavy container of fetal waste, Tiller asked his secretary, Luhra Tivis, to assist him. She found the experience devastating. The “most horrible thing,” Tivis later recounted, was that she “could smell those babies burning.” Tivis, a former NOW activist, soon left her secretarial position at the clinic to volunteer for Operation Rescue, a radical pro-life organization.

Other converts were driven into the pro-life movement by advances in ultrasound technology. The most recent example is Abby Johnson, the former director of Dallas-area Planned Parenthood. After watching, via ultrasound, an embryo “crumple” as it was suctioned out of its mother’s womb, Johnson reported a “conversion in my heart.” Likewise, Joan Appleton was the head nurse at a large abortion facility in Falls Church, Virginia, and a NOW activist. Appleton performed thousands of abortions with aplomb until a single ultrasound-assisted abortion rattled her. As Appleton remembers, “I was watching the screen. I saw the baby pull away. I saw the baby open his mouth. . . . After the procedure I was shaking, literally.”

The most famous abortion provider to be converted by ultrasound technology, decades ago, is Bernard Nathanson, cofounder of the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws, the original NARAL. In the early 1970s, Nathanson was the largest abortion provider in the Western world. By his own reckoning he performed more than 60,000 abortions, including one on his own child. Nathanson’s exit from the industry was slow and tortured. In Aborting America (1979), he expressed anxiety over the possibility that he was complicit in a great evil. He was especially troubled by ultrasound images. When he finally left his profession for pro-life activism, he produced The Silent Scream (1984), a documentary of an ultrasound abortion that showed the fetus scrambling vainly to escape dismemberment.

This handful of stories is representative of many more. In fact, with the exception of communism, we can think of few other movements from which so many activists have defected to the opposition. Nonetheless, the vast majority of clinic workers remain committed to the pro-choice cause. Perhaps some of those who stay behind are haunted by their work. Most, however, find a way to cope with the dissonance.Pro-choice advocates like to point out that abortion has existed in all times and places. Yet that observation tends to obscure the radicalism of the present abortion regime in the United States. Until very recently, no one in the history of the world has had the routine job of killing well-developed fetuses quite so up close and personal. It is an experiment that was bound to stir pro-life sentiments even in the hearts of those staunchly devoted to abortion rights. Ultrasound and D&E bring workers closer to the beings they destroy. Hern and Corrigan concluded their study by noting that D&E leaves “no possibility of denying an act of destruction.” As they wrote, “It is before one’s eyes. The sensations of dismemberment run through the forceps like an electric current.”

Jon A. Shields is assistant professor of government at Claremont McKenna College. David Daleiden is a student there.

The second article is below:Tim Tebow Super Bowl Ad: Anti-Abortion Commercial to AirCBS to Run Controversial Ad Promoting Family Values During the GameBy BRINDA ADHIKARIJan. 26, 2010—

He was the first sophomore in history to win a Heisman trophy. He was the first college football player both to rush and pass for 20 touchdowns in a season. Last year, he led his college team, the Florida Gators, to their second national championship in three years. At 6 feet 3 inches and 245 pounds, Tim Tebow may go down in history as the greatest college football player who ever lived.And to think none of that would have happened if not for a decision his mother made nearly 23 years ago.That is the message of a controversial new ad starring Tebow and his mother, Pam. Paid for by the conservative Christian group Focus on the Family, the ad tells the story of Bob and Pam Tebow, who was pregnant with their fifth child when the couple travelled to the Philippines on a missionary trip.

While there, Pam contracted amoebic dysentery and the medicines used for her recovery threatened her unborn fetus. Doctors advised her to abort the fetus. Pam ignored their advice and gave birth on Aug. 14, 1987, to a baby boy. That boy was Tim Tebow.

Watch World News with Diane Sawyer at 6:30 p.m. EST for more on this story.

Now arguably the highest profile player in college football for the past several years, Tebow cites his mother's decision as a key reason he chose to participate in the Focus on the Family ad, which created a mild uproar after CBS agreed to air it on Super Bowl Sunday.

"I know some people won't agree with it," said Tebow of the 30-second ad at a press conference in Mobile, Ala., on Sunday, in preparation for next weekend's Senior Bowl. "But I think they can at least respect that I stand up for what I believe. I've always been very convicted of [his views on abortion] because that's the reason I'm here, because my mom was a very courageous woman."

Tebow has long been open about his strong Christian beliefs and family values. Focus on the Family says the ad will highlight the theme "Celebrate family, celebrate life."

The spot will mark a departure for the Super Bowl, which draws the largest TV audience every year and usually has commercials featuring dancing lizards or fortune-telling snow globes.

The major television networks have previously declined to air polarizing advocacy ads. In 2004, CBS and its competitors rejected an ad by the United Church of Christ, welcoming gays and others who may have felt felt snubbed by more conservative churches. At the time, CBS was heavily criticized. It says that in recent months, it has run more issue-oriented advertising, such as ones for health care.

Firestorm or Tempest in a Teapot?Gary Schneeberger, a spokesperson from Focus on the Family told ABC News he was puzzled over the controversy surrounding the ad.

"There is nothing political or controversial about the spot. It's a personal story about the love between a mother and son," he said.

But a national coalition of women's groups is calling on CBS not to air the ad.

"This campaign is about holding CBS and the NFL and the other Super Bowl advertisers accountable," said Jehmu Greene, president of the Women's Media Center, "for inserting an exceedingly controversial issue into a place where we all hope Americans will be united, not divided, in terms of watching America's most-watched sporting event."

A spokesperson for CBS told the Associated Press that the network had approved the script for the ad and that it would ensure that any issue-oriented ad was "appropriate for air."

In a statement this afternoon the network said: "At CBS, our standards and practices process continues to adhere to a process that ensures all ads -- on all sides of an issue -- are appropriate for air. We will continue to consider responsibly produced ads from all groups for the few remaining spots in Super Bowl XLIV."

The ad has not been released publicly, but a source at CBS tells ABC News that the the words "abortion" and "pro-life" do not appear anywhere in the ad.

A 30-second ad during the Super Bowl is a highly-coveted advertising spot, with CBS selling its spots in this year's Super Bowl for $2.5 to $2.8 million. Despite an ailing economy, CBS is close to selling out its 62 ad spots for the broadcast, according to a USA Today report earlier this month.

However, CBS will not be counting on its usually reliable sponsors, with big companies such as General Motors, Pepsico and Fedex staying away from the Super Bowl, according to a study by ad researcher TNS Media Intelligence.

"CBS is doing this for the money," said Alex Jones, director of the Joan Shorenstein School of Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University. "It will indicate that a policy has changed. The networks have traditionally not put these kinds of ads on during the Super Bowl. This has been an area that has been kept relatively squeaky-clean of highly-polarizing politics. There is no way to be putting in an anti-abortion ad without prompting the pro-abortion side of the debate to get their message across. This may be a new profit center."

A Highly Coveted SpotThe ad would not be the first spot purchased by Focus on the Family. In 2005, the group purchased an ad spot during the show "Supernanny."

At the time, the group said that the show was all about Focus on the Family principles. "It was boundaries and using the time-out chair, respect for authority and good parenting skills," said Jim Daly, the group's president and CEO.

"This ad is frankly offensive, " said Erin Matson, the Action Vice President of the National Organization for Women, speaking of the Tebow commercial. "It is hate masquerading as love. It sends a message that abortion is always a mistake."

And then there's the matter of the ad airing on Super Bowl Sunday.

"If you're a sports fan, and I am, that's the holiest day of the year," wrote Gregg Doyel of CBSsports.com. "It's not a day to discuss abortion. For it, or against it, I don't care what you are. On Super Bowl Sunday, I don't care what I am. Feb. 7 is simply not the day to have that discussion."

(Gregg...you think a football game is "holy"? I'll be praying for you! Jill)

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Wii has rocked my world.
My folks gave us a Wii set for Christmas and Bernie and I are having a blast playing all the fitness games together.

There are games to build balance.

I like the one where you shift your balance to move a penguin across an iceberg in order to catch fish.
Then there is the one where you lean to steer a bubble down a river without snagging it and making it pop. (I am really terrible at this game for some reason...)

Then there are sports. I'm doing pretty well at bowling, hitting about 160 pt. per game. It feels real, and I threw myself so much into the game one day that I sprained my fanny. The technical name for that is "bowler's butt".

Until last night.
Last night I decided to play a game called "Zen".
I had to sit cross legged on the Wii board, focus on the candle that was slowly burning on screen, and remain absolutely still while sounds of hoof beats, steps, creaks and such were all around me.

I aced the game. I got a perfect score!!!!! Hallelullah!

I have at long last found my sports event: Sitting on my butt perfectly still, staring straight ahead and thinking about absolutely nothing until a candle burns down.

Think the sport will ever be considered for an Olympic event?

If it is, I will definitely be a contender on Team USA.
Anyone out there want to be on the team with me?
Come on...you know you could do it. You know you could!

Sunday, January 24, 2010

Valentine's Day is drawing near...are you in the mood for a true and romantic story?

It is a story I stumbled upon during one of my exploring jaunts during a break from work.

First let me introduce you to our romantic lead: Francis Armstrong, who was also known as Frank.

He was born in England in 1839, then emigrated with his family to the town of Hamilton in Ontario Canada at age eleven. Seeking adventure on the frontier, he left Canada at age nineteen, setting out for Richmond Missouri, with ultimate plans to work his way to California and then on to Australia.

Very ambitious of him, wouldn't you say?

But fate stepped in; in Richmond he met with a Mormon wagon train headed west to Salt Lake. His carpentry skills were needed by the settlers on the trail; with his skills on board he and the settlers safely arrived in the Salt Lake valley in 1860.

Next Frank found work with Robert Siddoway's lumber and grain mill. Later Frank took employment with Siddoway's competitor and rose to the position of mill manager shortly there after. This position emboldened him to go to the home of his former employer and ask for the hand of Siddoway's beautiful daughter Isobel.

Isobel had had an amazing life, having lost her mother as a child in Pennsylvania and then walking with her father and siblings from that east coast state all the way to Utah at the tender age of ten. As a young woman, she caught the eye of several young men by the lively way she danced at social gatherings.

Now Isobel's father was delighted with the prospect of having Frank as a son-in-law. Isobel's step-mother did not share his joy. She pointed out that it would cost at least two hundred dollars to hire out the work that Isobel did at home.

(Strange lady that step-mother...)

Without further discussion, Frank handed Mrs. Siddoway two hundred dollars on the spot. She could hire herself the help that she needed, as Isobel was going to be getting married to him instead.

Mr. Siddoway commented to his daughter "That young man is going to be a leader!"

The couple were married in 1864. Frank was 25, Isobel but fifteen. They drove a borrowed buggy and team to a small house on First South Street-on the very property that Frank would later purchase for his family residence at a later date.

Frank vowed to his young bride "You'll have a finer buggy, better horses and a grander home soon. I promise you!"

(Above: Frank's promise fulfilled. Don't you just love that turret?)

As Isobel told the story in later years, "I thought that I had married a crazy man! He was so sure that he could deliver the sun and moon if they'd please me!"

He wasn't crazy after all. His business ventures included the purchase of the mill where he worked, a construction company, a flour mill and a ranch. For years the couple worked together, during which time they were blessed with ten children.

Frank did prove to be an excellent leader: he was twice elected as Mayor of Salt Lake City, leaving the office of Mayor in the year 1890.

(Today the Mansion is a Bed and Breakfast, recently restored with original furnishings, and updated with full baths in each of its 12 guest bedrooms.)

Shortly after that date, he took his wife of 29 years to England, where together they toured homes to find a building style to use when they built their dream home.

The Armstrong's prosperity had permitted them to buy the entire south east corner of of city block...a fine mansion was in order to keep up with the properties of their neighbors!

The couple settled on a "Queen Anne" style home, made drawing to take back with them to Salt Lake, and their dream home was completed in 1893.

(My grandfather was born in the same city one year later....)

(The living room)

It was one of but four homes in the city with the luxury of piped in running water.

The forty-three year old mother of ten must have considered herself to be living in the lap of luxury at last.

Sadly, her joy was to last but six years more years. In 1899 Frank was suddenly stricken with a severe stomach ailment that took his life at age 59.

He once told his closest friend, "Home is my heaven on earth, Heaven will be home and family ...or it won't be heaven."

Isobel lived on for another thirty years as a widow, dying at last in 1930 at in the home her young bridegroom had promised her on her wedding day.

(Guest breakfast room)

The day that I visited the Mansion I was greeted with the fragrant scent of baking croissants, which the innkeeper had popped into the oven just as I arrived. I really was just walking around the neighborhood and on a whim decided to take them up on the "Open House" offer.

She walked me through the Mansion, letting me see each of the twelve guest rooms, each themed around a month of the year. Outside the rooms were pictures of the children that slept in each room and a brief summation of their lives.

Isn't that ceiling lovely?

The fact that Frank was a carpenter and mill worker/owner showed in the finely detailed woodwork throughout the house.

I love the idea that the bottom banister post held a lamp.

The Mansion now has jacuzzi tubs tucked into some part of each room. I wish Isobel could have had a luxurious soak in one of these tubs at least once.

A climb up a winding wrought iron stair case leads to a landing beneath the Mansion's turret where one room's tub is located.

An oak motif was carefully hand carved on the wood panelling.

Down in the basement area was a room that struck me as an especially cozy retreat despite the low modern ceiling.

The Innkeeper told me that this was the original carpeting; they had only recently removed it from the dining area where it had finally become too tattered for use.

The tile in one of the guest rooms was original as well.

What a romantic story...and a seriously romantic Bed and Breakfast as well.

After I peeked at all the rooms, the Innkeeper handed me a croissant fresh from the oven, and thank me for dropping by.

I took a pamphlet on my way out, and have used it and a website to tell the Armstrong's story today.

If you are interested in seeing more...pop on over to their website here.

There are some awfully tempting deals on the rooms.

Would it be so wrong to perhaps plan an early Valentine's Day treat there for just us two?

Who knows...

That "call and reserve for the same day's lodging" deal is pretty sweet.

Maybe I'll just decide to do just that on the spur of the moment some day.

Then I could just walk to work the next morning!

(No one would notice if I came to work wearing the same thing I wore the day before, now would they? Or would they gossip about me and wonder where I had spent the night? An old married lady like me...doing something like that? Could my reputation stand it? Really, what would they think?)

Winter storms are at last refreshing the ski areas that are just minutes from our house.

Mr. B. has been skiing on fresh powder twice since Friday. I am so glad the slippery icicle producing warm temperatures and rains have changed to snow.

The weather really got down to business here. We got eight inches of new snow last night!

Rudy is now up to his neck in snow; his real life antelope brethren made the front page as they traveled the mountainsides in vast herds while up to their shoulders in snow.

A Blue jay loudly let me know what he thought about the weather from his tree top perch.

Awhile ago B. left his car out overnight.

While I waited inside the car before we ran an errand, he applied the ice scrapers.

I applied my camera...capturing the fragile beauty just before the scraping blade crushed the wintry designs into slush.

The bridal shop near where I work had three new gowns in the window.The lacy ruffled look is the "new" in thing...I had wondered if such sweetness would ever return.

Do they not remind you of the frost and snowflake close-ups that I have photographed?

Isn't it strange that the image of lace harbors no suggestion of cold?

Why is that?

*****

Life is good here: I hit the clearance sales at Macy's and scored six new tops and three pairs of pants for work. Love those sales racks!

Spring styles were to be seen as well; I am so not ready for sleeveless clothes and capris!

Last year at this time I was scoping out a Mother-of-the-Groom outfit; as I wandered through the store I remembered the suffocating feelings I felt then as realized that nothing that was being shown was suitable for a springtime morning church wedding.

Aggghhh....it was awful!

There were maybe a few items available now that I noted could of worked back then.

I'm Jill. I'm a librarian and milliner now living in Salt Lake City with my husband of 37 years and my three shelter adopted cats. I'm 60, was born and expected I would spent my whole life in San Diego, save for two years in Corvallis Oregon in college.
Then beginning in 1997, right after our youngest graduated from high school my husband and I began "empty nesting" on the move. We lived one year in Almenden CA (San Jose area), two years in Dallas TX and eight years on Houston TX before moving Salt Lake City in the fall of 2008.
I love it here, but counting on Heaven being my ultimate hometown! I do hope we will one day be neighbors there?
I have two adult children; a daughter in San Diego and a son (and daughter-in-law) who also live in Salt Lake City; two beloved grandsons, and parents who were born and still live in San Diego, and who read my blog every day.